Sunday, January 13, 2013

Debt

In a blow to the movement's supporters, the U.S. Treasury announced Saturday that it would not mint a $1 trillion platinum coin in order to ensure the nation's creditworthiness should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling.

”Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” said Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley in a statement obtained by TPM.

Acknowledging that money is just a tool means you have to explain why money is so poorly distributed. You could mint the trillion and pay it into Social Security and it would be fine. Or pay off mortgages. Or make food stamps. Or subsidize day-care.

It doesn't serve the existing order to prove that the river of money flowing to the assholes is just a game and not divine recognition of worthiness.

10 comments:

Just the occasional reminder that we spend most our time creating and occasionally solving fake problems instead of dealing with real ones. People need jobs. People need decent health care. There's been an increase in catastrophic weather events. We're a country of immense wealth. These things shouldn't be hard.

I don't think much of billmon's trillion-dollar coin argument. It seems to me to be exactly what Atrios is talking about above: worrying about the political process instead of enacting a policy that is good.

I think his point is that it will solve the problem in a way that will ultimately burn the Dems when they already have the Repubs by the short hairs. Regardless of that one argument, Billmon was the guy that was worth reading when everything else was crap.

I remember, but I don't recall him as a raging leftist. Mind you I'm Canadian.

I still see him as buying into the wrong frame: good policies tend to lead to good results. Walloping the idiots with the bad ideas is fun, but not the same thing. I don't think you trust that Obama's dealmaking skillz favour your interests.

You are definitely right on the deal making fears. I do find it convincing that there would be a national freakout if people were ever really challenged on the true meaning of money, i.e. it is a complete fantasy. I think the backlash in terms of politics would be larger than many proponents acknowledge and Billmon is making that point. IDK if the freakout would pass and then real results could be achieved, but neither does Paul Krugman.

No, Billmon wasn't a raging lefty, but he cut through the bullshit better than almost anyone. This was a time when Joe Klein and Steve Cohen ruled supreme for "lefties."